Provincial government declares power company “persona non grata”

The province of Romblon has declared DMCI Power Corporation ‘persona non grata’ for its part in opposing a contract to supply electricity to nine provincial towns and some 200,000 residents in the surrounding region.

The declaration means the power company is unwelcome to do business within the province of Romblon – a league of additional town mayors have followed suit and made mirrored declarations stating the firm is unwelcome to their towns.

In Resolution #06-2015-117, the Provincial Sanggunian said it is declaring the DMCIPC as persona non grata for “blocking and opposing the implementation of the power projects of Tablas Island Electric Cooperative and the Sunwest Water and Electric Co.”

It said Tablas Island Electric conducted a public bidding for the supply of electricity to nine towns, which Sunwest won.

Despite losing the bidding, the DMCI power firm blocked the approval by the Energy Regulatory Commission of a power supply agreement between Tablas and Sunwest, depriving about 200,000 residents of electricity.

DMCI claims that the winning bidder is not complying with the terms of the bidding. The winning bidder was to build a hydro-electric plant to generate power continuously to the 9 provincial towns while operating temporarily on an 8-megawatt diesel generator system.

Locals say that power outages are continuous since 2012 and many of the island residences are having difficulties living a normal life – this is one of the reasons why Romblon filed the ‘persona non grata’ order.

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